Sharp increases in the price of oil are generally seen as a major contributor to business cycle asymmetries. Moreover, the very recent highs registered in the world oil market are causing concern about possible slowdowns in the economic performance of the most developed countries. While several...

A well-known fact in the time series of aggregate output is the persistence of shocks. This paper argues that the empirical relation between the expected growth rate of a firm and its size provides a microfoundation of aggregate persistence. In fact, the empirical evidence claims that small...

The design of monetary policy depends upon the targeting strategy adopted by the central bank. This strategy describes a set of policy preferences, which are actually the structural parameters to analyse monetary policy making. Accordingly, we develop a novel calibration method to identify...